Any regular readers I might
have might find themselves a little surprised to see me writing on a Beethoven
recital with fortepiano. I confess that, when I first looked at the Wigmore
Hall website, I saw ‘piano’ and assumed that Kristian Bezuidenhout would be
playing on a modern instrument. Players do ‘switch’, after all. Then, having
arranged to go, I told myself to be open-minded. I am glad that I did, since
Bezuidenhout’s playing was often a joy; indeed, in many respects, rather to my
surprise, I found him better suited than Matthias Goerne to these songs. If
there were times when I missed the fuller tone of a modern Steinway, or even
better, a Bösendorfer, my ears adjusted to the sound of the 1824 Graf
instrument, and I listened for its virtues rather than making myself cross
about what was not there. (We have all had enough exercises in futility for a
while!) Goerne, by contrast, whilst offering committed, intelligent
performances, did not seem to me quite in his element; he needs more gloom,
more tragedy.

Resignation, then, was not a bad place to start. This
late song (well, relatively late: 1817) certainly sounded resigned in a subtle
performance from both artists. I am not quite sure what happened with An die Hoffnung, op.32; what Goerne sang
was certainly not, in the first stanza, what was written in the programme. I do
not have a score to hand to check. Anyway, the variation between stanzas was
well handled, Bezuidenhout arguably first among equals in that respect. I
missed greater depth in the 1809 Lied aus
der Ferne, at least to start with. That said, the transformation of what
initially struck me as mere prettiness into something more akin to the ‘namenlose
Freude’ of Fidelio, and onward to
good humour, was again skilfully handled. I was a little unsure about a certain
motoric quality to some of the keyboard playing in the Goethe Mailied. It was clearly an
interpretative decision, since Bezuidenhout would then quickly, pleasingly
yield; I am just not quite sure why. A Schubertian tinge to Der Liebende was most welcome.

The Gellert Lieder suffer from dreadful words, the
harking back of their theology to the eighteenth century almost, if not quite, the least of their
problems. There is musical interest, though, even if it is not maintained consistently. The
goodness, ‘Güte’, of the opening ‘Bitten’ came across strongly, hearteningly,
and there was a nicely declamatory quality, not just in the vocal line, to ‘Die
Liebe des Nächsten’. ‘Vom Tode’ is much closer to Goerne home territory, and so
it sounded, looking forward not only to Winterreise
but even to Brahms’s Four Serious Songs.
The next two songs are much more backward-looking; for me, they underline above
all that Beethoven was much less a song-composer, or much less consistently so,
than Schubert. The closing Bußlied,
however, is more ‘Romantic’, even if the words constrain Beethoven; at least if
we take the Missa solemnis to be what
his religious thought was really concerned with. Bezuidenhout navigated with
ease the tricky twists and turns, a sure and often charming guide.

Another An die Hoffnung, op.94, opened the second half. The immediate note
of contrasting desolation was promising; the subsequent turn to Fidelio-land also convinced. However,
the tessitura did not always seem well-suited to Goerne’s voice, and the song
is not without its passages of dullness. The lovely early Adelaide was much more of a pleasure, Bezuidenhout revelling in its
quiet, post-Mozartian exultancy. Innigkeit
was very much the order of the day, greatly welcome, in Wonne der Wehmut and Das
Liedchen von der Ruhe. An die
Geliebte offered a lighter interlude prior to the moment we had all been
waiting for.

An
die ferne Geliebte, one of
the greatest and most underrated of song-cycles, did not disappoint. ‘Auf dem
Hügel sitz ich, spähend…’ it begins, and so it sounded, as if Goerne were
sitting, gazing. Bezuidenhout drew attention to the differentiation of ‘accompaniment’
in each stanza. Sometimes, again, I wished for something his instrument could
not do, but not that often. His handling of the transitions between songs could
hardly be faulted: vivid in its own narrative quality. The lightness of the
opening stanza to the third song, ‘Leichte Segler in den Höhen’, offered
welcome contrast; so, to that, did what came thereafter. When we reached May – ‘Es
kehret der Maien’ – it really sounded like it, at least in the piano part. The
desolation of its final line, ‘Und Tränen sind all ihr Gewinnen’, was very much
Goerne’s, though. The noble simplicity of the closing ‘Nimm sie hin den, diese
Lieder’ showed both artists at their best, the return of the opening theme in
the piano part as heart-stopping as it should be.